Weight, physical volume, and battery life are limiting factors when deciding what illumination sources to bring camping. Campers who carry their supplies into wilderness areas often forgo bringing a lantern because they are too big, too heavy, and/or too battery inefficient. This leaves campers with only the light from their headlamps, which are good for individual close-up activities, but not suitable for social or extended lighting. Campers have found ways to hack this problem by strapping their headlamp to a gallon of water or placing a halved ping pong ball over their headlamp to transform the spotty light from their headlamp into softer, more diffuse light. However, these solutions can diffuse light too much, making the lantern dimmer than desired.
Some campers utilize more than one headlamp as a light source to assist with the problem of dim lantern light. Another hack includes turning a hydration bladder into a lantern. In this hack, a light source is affixed to a bottom of the bladder, which is filled with liquid. The light is then diffused through the liquid, which acts as a lantern. The light is attached to the bladder by threading two ends of a band through the bladder and cinching ends of the band tight.
It is clear that the outdoor community desires an alternative to large cumbersome lanterns. Given the current alternatives to the large lanterns, there exists a need for more efficient alternatives.